Potosí, too high to handle

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This blog is called "Bus Diaries" for a reason. We got really spoiled in Argentina, riding first and second class buses and we knew that in a country like Bolivia which is a lot poorer, the general standard would be lower. So we braced ourselves for our nine hour night-busride to Potosí but we could not imagine what we were in for.

The bus was quite run down, the seats were worn out and the covers were broken so that the filling was hanging out. The slideable windows were provisionally held together by strings and would actually slide open during the busride. We could have managed all of this but the horror started on the road. We drove almost the entire way on a super bad gravel-/dirtroad and our driver was speeding like an insane person. The bus was shaking back and forth and jumping up and down for nine hours straight. It was pitchblack outside and we could only glance mountains on our left and right and we really had no idea if he was just cutting across country. During the night, it got freezing cold outside and due to the broken windows that kept sliding open, it was very drafty and cold on the bus. Needless to say, we barely slept. Dios mio!

When we finally arrived in Potosí at five in the morning, we only wanted to go to bed and got a taxi to the family-run guesthouse "La Vicuna". It turned out to be a very nice place with an archway and a big inner courtyard in the heart of the city. Potosí is one of the world's highest cities at 4060m and we read before hand that the altitude could cause problems and it did. We could hardly walk up the stairs without being completely out of breath and walking up the many uphill streets of the city took several pauses and curses. The strenuous busride and the altitude took its toll: Grim caught a cold with a fever and I could not handle the altitude and was feeling nauseous with circulations problems. So we spend most of our time in Potosí sick in bed.

The little sightseeing we did was on the way to a restaurant because in Bolivia we can splurge. A three course meal is between 2 - 4 euros / 20 - 40 kronor. For the nine hour busride from hell, we paid 7 euros / 70 kronor and our doubleroom in the guesthouse was 5 euros. In comparison: In Argentina, we paid 40 euro for the same distance busride and 10 euros for a bed in a six to eight people dorm.

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